Sociologist compares today's crisis to Nazi smear campaign

Perhaps the most remarkable defense of Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church vis-à-vis the sexual abuse crisis to appear in recent weeks ironically never mentions the current pope, and it comes not from a senior Vatican official but a lay Italian sociologist of religion. In a nutshell, the suggestion – never made explicit, but clear nonetheless – is that today’s drumbeat of criticism of the church over “pedophile priests” amounts to a replay of a Nazi smear campaign.

Massimo Introvigne, who directs the international Center for Studies on New Religions, published an essay in the April 16 edition of L’Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian bishops, about a Nazi campaign in 1937 led by Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels to discredit the Catholic Church following Pope Pius XI’s anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. Introvigne argues that Goebbels created what sociologists would later call a “moral panic,” based on real facts, but facts which are distorted and amplified.

In the end, Introvigne says, the plan backfired – Goebbels’ attempt to smear the church generated more outrage than actual cases of sexual abuse in 1930s-era German Catholicism, which were reported in the German media and tried in German courts.

The following is an NCR translation of Introvigne’s essay, the Italian original of which may be found here: http://www.avvenire.it

In 1937 the Nazi propaganda minister organized a campaign to discredit the Catholic Church in response to the encyclical ‘Mit brennender Sorge.’ The head of the German military’s counter-espionage unit, Wilhelm Canaris, passed the documents to Pius XII.

“There are cases of sexual abuse that come to light every day against a large number of members of the Catholic clergy. Unfortunately it’s not a matter of individual cases, but a collective moral crisis that perhaps the cultural history of humanity has never before known with such a frightening and disconcerting dimension. Numerous priests and religious have confessed. There’s no doubt that the thousands of cases which have come to the attention of the justice system represent only a small fraction of the true total, given that many molesters have been covered and hidden by the hierarchy.”

An editorial from a great secular newspaper in 2010? No: It’s a speech of May 28, 1937, by Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), Minister of Propaganda for the Third Reich. This speech, which had a large international echo, was the apex of a campaign launched by the Nazi regime to discredit the Catholic Church by involving it in a scandal of pedophile priests.

Two hundred and seventy-six religious and forty-nine diocesan priests were arrested in 1937. The arrests took place in all the German dioceses, in order to keep the scandals on the front pages of the newspapers.

On March 10, 1937, with the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) condemned the Nazi ideology. At the end of the same month, the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda headed by Goebbels launched a campaign against the sexual abuses of priests. The design and administration of this campaign are known to historians thanks to documents which tell a story worthy of the best spy novels.

In 1937, the head of the counter-espionage service of the German military was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1887-1945). He became gradually anti-Nazi, and at the time was maturing the convictions which led him to organize the failed assassination attempt against Hitler in 1944, following which he was hanged in 1945. Canaris disapproved of Goebbels’ maneuver against the Church, and instructed a Catholic lawyer named Josef Müller (1878-1979) to carry to Rome a series of highly secret documents on the subject.

In different phases, Müller – before he was arrested and sent to the Dachau extermination camp, where he survived, and later became the post-war Minister of Justice in Bavaria – carried the secret documents to Pius XII (1876-1958), who asked the Society of Jesus to study them.

With the approval of the Secretary of State, the study of the Nazi plot against the Church was entrusted to the German Jesuit Walter Mariaux (1894-1963), who had inspired an anti-Nazi organization in Germany called “Pauluskreis.” He was later prudently sent as a missionary in Brazil and in Argentina. There, as leader of the Marian Congregation, he exercised his influence over an entire generation of lay Catholics, among whom was the noted Brazilian Catholic thinker Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (1908-1995), who attended his group in São Paulo. In 1940, in London in English and in Argentina in Spanish, Mariaux published two volumes on anti-Catholic persecution by the Third Reich under the pseudonym “Testis Fidelis.” They contained over seven hundred pages of documents with comments, which aroused great emotion in the entire world.

The expression “moral panic” was only coined by sociologists in the 1970s to identify a social alarm created as a kind of art, accomplished by amplifying real facts and exaggerating their numbers through statistical folklore, as well as “discovering” and presenting as “new” events which in reality are already known and which date to the past. There are real events at the base of the panic, but their number is systematically distorted.

Even without the benefit of modern sociology, Goebbels responded to the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge in 1937 with a textbook case of the creation of a moral panic.

As always in moral panics, the facts are not totally invented. Prior to the encyclical there were some cases in Germany of abuse of minors. Mariaux himself considered a religious in the school of Bad Reichenall guilty, as well as a lay teacher, a gardener and a janitor, who were condemned in 1936, although he believed that the sanction imposed by the Ministry of Public Instruction in Bavaria – revoking the authorization to run scholastic institutes of four religious orders – to be entirely disproportionate, and he linked it to the desire of the regime to undercut Catholic schools. Also in the case of the Franciscans of Waldbreitbach, in Rhineland, Mariaux was open to the hypothesis that the accused were guilty, although later historians have not excluded the possibility that they were framed by the Nazis.

The cases, which were few, but real, produced a very strong reaction from the episcopate. On June 2, 1936, the Bishop of Münster – Blessed Clemens August von Galen (1878-1946), who was the soul of Catholic resistance to Nazism, and who was beatified in 2005 by Benedict XVI – had a declaration read at all the Sunday Masses in which he expressed “pain and sadness” for these “abominable crimes” that “cover our Holy Church with ignominy.” On August 20, 1936, after the events at Waldbreitbach, the German episcopate published a joint pastoral letter in which they “several condemned” those responsible and underlined the cooperation of the Church with the tribunals of the state.

By the end of 1936, the severe measures taken by the German bishops in reaction to these very few cases, some of which were doubtful, seemed to have resolved the real problems. Submissively, the bishops also pointed out that among teachers in the state schools and in the very youth organization of the regime, the Hitler Youth, the cases of condemnations for sexual abuses were much more numerous than among the Catholic clergy.

It was the anti-Nazi encyclical of Pius XI that led to the great campaign of 1937. Mariaux proved it publishing highly detailed instructions sent by Goebbels to the Gestapo, the political police of the Third Reich, and above all to journalists, just a few days after the publication of Mit brennender Sorge, inviting them to “reopen” the cases from 1936 and also older cases, constantly recalling them to public opinion. Goebbels also ordered the Gestapo to find witnesses willing to accuse a certain number of priests, threatening them with immediate arrest if they didn’t collaborate, even if they were children.

The proverbial phrase “there’s a judge in Berlin,” which in German tradition indicates trust in the independence of the court system from the political power of the moment, applied – within certain limits – even in the Third Reich. Of the 325 priests and religious arrested after the encyclical, only 21 were condemned, and it’s all but certain that among them some were falsely accused. Virtually all of them ended up in extermination camps, where many died.

The effort to discredit the Catholic Church on an international scale through accusations of immorality and pedophilia among priests, however, did not succeed.

Thanks to the courage of Canaris and his friends, and to the persistence of the Jesuit detective Mariaux, the truth was already out during the war. The perfidy of the campaign of Goebbels aroused more indignation than the eventual guilt of some religious. The father of all moral panics in the area of pedophile priests blew up in the hands of the Nazi propagandists who had tried to organize it.

No, I'm Presbyterian and the Presbyterian Church does not have bishops.

The Apostlic model not sufficient for the Presbyterians?

We have elders and presbyters elected by and from the congregation, a system upon which the U.S. government was specifically modeled.

The House and Senate were modeled on Presbyterian government? How about the White House? Vice President? Where does the Supreme Court fit in? I would be fascinated to understand yet another fascinating statement by the good Dr. E.

(And my Presbyterian denomination does not ordain women as pastors, so spare me the attempted insult.)

You and I both know that it is futile attempting to insult you. However, the point is well taken that the vast majority of Presbyterians and other formerly Calvinist denominations - (90% or higher) do ordain women as pastors. The local presbyter is female (last time I looked it up). Your point?

Wake up, Rome. You're going the wrong way.

I don't know about Rome, but the Catholic Church does not have priestesses at any level.

Negative; Christianity has a Queen Mother based upon the Jewish, Middle Eastern and European models of the ruler of the nation.

The name "Mary" comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a shortened form of Μαριάμ. This is a transliteration of the Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic name Maryam. During the Middle Ages Hebrew vowel systems were formed and the Hebrew vowel "a" changed (regularly) to "i" in a closed unaccented syllable, so that by the time the Jews began to use vowel points, they wrote it as Miryam. Mary's most common titles include The Blessed Virgin Mary (also abbreviated to "BVM"), Our Lady (Notre Dame, Nuestra Señora, Nossa Senhora, Madonna), Mother of God, and the Queen of Heaven (Regina Caeli). See Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Mary is referred to by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Anglican Church, and all Eastern Catholic Churches as Theotokos, a title recognized at the Third Ecumenical Council (held at Ephesus to address the teachings of Nestorius, in 431). Theotokos (and its Latin equivalents, "Deipara" and "Dei genetrix") literally means "Godbearer". The equivalent phrase "Mater Dei", (Mother of God) is more common in Latin and so also in the other languages used in the Western Catholic Church, but this same phrase in Greek (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ), in the abbreviated form of the first and last letter of the two words (ΜΡ ΘΥ), is the indication attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers "did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God",[10] so as to emphasize that Mary's child, Jesus Christ, is in fact God.

The title, Queen Mother, was given to Mary in early Christianity, since Mary was the mother of Jesus, who was sometimes referred to as the "King of Kings" due to His lineage of King David. The biblical basis for this understanding is found in 1 Kings 2:19–20, where King Solomon made his mother, Bathsheba, his queen mother present in his royal court. This governmental practice is also found throughout 1 and 2 Kings and in Jeremiah 13:18–19. In ancient Middle Eastern cultures, it was common for a king to have more than one wife; however, the king only had one mother and she was an integral part of each royal court.[11]

Mary is also sometimes referred to as the New Eve, as her obedience to God's command (contrasted with Eve's disobedience) led, according to this system of belief, to the salvation of mankind through Jesus.[12]

If you would stop looking at things through 2010 American eyes and look at the context of the times and realize what was actually being described, then you might see that the reality of the OT (and surely you would appreciate the OT reference, would you not?) model is in fact what the earliest Christians including St. Luke, he of the famous icon of Mary, believed.

The Queen Mother is not a goddess, nor is she an object of worship. If you would read your Middle East and European history - including the example of the recently deceased Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother - you would understand the role and cease the charges of goddess worship.

With that, the Catholic Church does not have priestesses. The Presbyterian Church does. The local presbyter is a priestess, at least the last time that I looked.

Mary is not Queen of the world. Mary is not an intercessor. Mary is not a mediator. Mary is not a co-redeemer. Mary is not a dispensatrix of all grace. Mary is not the mother of the church.

You weren't paying attention. Mary is the Queen Mother. St. Luke venerated her with his icon. Do you reject St. Luke's icon? If so, do you reject his Gospel? Do you reject Acts?

But it will end. And not well.

When the OPC closes the doors of its final church (which may or may not occur within our lifetimes), will you admit that you were wrong? For it is not a matter of if but when.

The world is coming back to Christianity. Those Anglicans that are still Christian are flooding back to the Church, for instance. Mary, the Queen Mother concept goes back to the rooms in Jerusalem and the catacombs of Rome. Who will mourn the OPC after its demise? Will you guys return to Christianity after the death of all Presbyterian churches?

Mary is not Queen of the world. Mary is not an intercessor. Mary is not a mediator. Mary is not a co-redeemer. Mary is not a dispensatrix of all grace. Mary is not the mother of the church.

Flee from the pagan idolatry Rome practices as it ignore the Scriptures and invents its own delirium fantasies.

Who's preeminent in that church? Whose image is highest? Largest? Whose crown in biggest? Who's most commanding?

If you're having trouble with the answer, here's a close-up...

"Flee from idolatry."

Mary is not Queen of the world. Mary is not an intercessor. Mary is not a mediator. Mary is not a co-redeemer. Mary is not a dispensatrix of all grace. Mary is not the mother of the church.

That lather is worthy of a can of Barbasol. Instead of playing the banshee, how about investigating what the early Christians believed and practiced? You rail on about the Catholic Church, yet you accept completely and without reservation its New Testament, and its declarations of Christmas and Easter. You accept completely and without reservation the Lord's Day of Sunday replacing Saturday as the Jewish day of worship. You accept completely and without reservation the doctrine of the Trinity.

This is like the cafeteria Catholics who try to pick and choose. You say delirium. You yourself in your own theology are a significant follower of that 'delirium'. You guys reject the Church overtly, yet completely accept the Church tacitly. The numbers and the history tell it: you guys are wrong.

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